Some claims are easy to assess. To know whether it's raining, just look outside.
A scene from Braveheart (below). Does he look like the loyal type?
The text points out different things that can influence the way we perceive the world, such as tiredness or fears. But even when our senses are on full alert, our perception of the world isn't always accurate. For instance, our senses tell us that the lines in the image below are curved, but they are actually straight. This should cause us to be more humble about what we think we know.
So we now move from inductive knowledge to evaluating claims and sources. This section is one of the most important in the class. All of us have various beliefs about the world. Somehow, we decide what information is reliable and what isn't. But how? Where do you get your information? How do you know that it's reliable? When is a claim credible enough to merit believing it? Let's look at this last question in more detail.
Do you remember what a claim is from the beginning of class? A claim is something that can be true or false in principle (except for subjective claims which are a matter of opinion).. "It's raining" is a claim; either it's raining and the claim is true, or it's not raining and the claim is false. Now for some new information: there is the claim, and there is the source of the claim.
Some claims are outright implausible. Like this one: "All house cats are secretly plotting to take over the world." It doesn’t matter who says it, this claim lacks credibility.
Other claims are credible. It’s important to note that credibility comes in degrees. It’s not like validity, which is all or nothing. It's a credible claim that smoking cigarettes can lead to lung cancer. Why? Because various medical experts have done independent, controlled studies to support the dangers of smoking in this regard. It's less credible that using cell phones can cause cancer (though some of us might have a hunch that it can!). Why? Because there is less (or almost no) evidence.
Here are some important terms:
- Interested parties: people who stand to gain from your belief in a claim.
- Disinterested parties: a person with no stake in your belief in a claim.
We often judge a person’s credibility based on their mannerisms and appearance—but these things say nothing about a person’s credibility. In the movie Braveheart (maybe some of you remember?) there is a point where two men are found wanting to be added to William Wallace's gang. It turns out that the rude, irreverant one is loyal to Wallace, while the one who pledged loyalty from the beginning is not loyal and tries to kill Wallace.
As a rule, interested parties are generally less credible than other sources. We should ask whether the claim itself lacks credibility, and whether the source of the claim lacks credibility.
Sometimes claims conflict with personal observations. If a claim conflicts with what you observe about the world, it’s natural to doubt that claim. If someone says that he can make water float in the air without a container, it’s natural for me to doubt him since I never observe water floating in such a way.
Unfortunately, our observations of things are not always accurate. There are numerous factors that influence the way we perceive the world: beliefs, hopes, fears, emotions, tiredness, etc. We automatically see the things people we like as doing good things, even if they do bad things. And we automatically see people we hate as doing bad things, even if they do good things. If we already like a particular actor, we might be predisposed to like a movie that actor is in, even if the movie itself is terrible! Some people--let's face it--are able to perceive the world more accurately than others.
Our memories deceive us all the time. We shouldn’t always think that what we remember observing was what we actually observed.
However, even if our immediate observations are not perfect, they are the best source of info we have, so they have some credibility.
Background information: the body of justified beliefs we learn from our own observations or from others. Often our background information is confirmed by a variety of sources. We immediately reject the claim that “Dinosaurs wander the forests of the state of Oregon.” We don’t have to observe that this is false to know it to be false, based on our background information.
Initial Plausibility: a rough assessment of how credible a claim is, how consistent the claim is with our background information.
If the claim doesn’t fit with our background information, we give it low initial plausibility. For instance, if a friend tells you that she met the president, you might initially reject the claim due to the fact that people, particularly your friends, don't meet presidents very often. The claim has low initial plausibility. Of course, if your friend shows you a picture or tells a believable story, then it's possible she could convince you.
There is no formula for deciding what beliefs to accept and what to reject (if there were, there would be a lot less disagreement in the world). You just have to take things on a case by case basis. You have to trust your background information and keep an open mind—new information can sometimes cause us to give up beliefs that we thought were true.
The broader your background information, the more likely you will be able to evaluate any given claim. This gives us a reason to have an enquiring attitude about the world—there’s no substitute for a broad range of knowledge, as Moore and Parker point out in the text. College has its problems (as I'm sure many of you are aware). However, one of the basic principles of a college education is exposure to a diversity of knowledge and information, broader background information.
Questioning the Credibility of a Source
The credibility of a source can be questioned in two ways: 1) We can doubt whether the source has knowledge about the issue. 2) We can doubt the person’s truthfulness, objectivity, or accuracy.
How can we judge a person’s expertise? Education and experience are often, but not always, the most important factors in judging a person’s expertise. Accomplishments and reputation are also important.
Of course, experts can disagree and make bad judgments too. We should also keep in mind that just because someone is an expert in one field does not make them an expert in another field. We should listen to a physicist for his knowledge of the laws of the physical world, not for his knowledge of dentistry.
As Moore and Parker point out in the text: “The reasonable position is the one that agrees with the most authoritative opinion but allows for open-mindedness to change if the evidence changes” (pages differ between editions)..
News Media
Discussions about media bias are rampant, from the classroom to the workplace to the late night party. Although the situation is often more complicated than indicated by the typical drunken debate, there are certainly some grains of truth to the charge of media bias. The fewer owners there are of the media, the more likely the news will be slanted. Unfortunately, ownership has become more concentrated over time, to the point that there are only six major news organizations giving us the vast majority of our news. Take a look at this media ownership chart. This means that when you watch, say, the Daily Show it's being filtered through the owners at Viacom and when you watch Fox News it's being filtered through the owners at NewsCorp (to name just a couple!).
I once had a boss who would talk about the “liberal media.” I also had a friend in high school who used to talk about the “conservative media.” Both were strong in their convictions that one point of view dominates the news. As it turns out, both views are true to some extent. Some polls have shown that certain portions of the news media tend to vote democrat rather than republican (typically the news anchors). The media, however, tends to be controlled by conservatives. Rupert Murdoch is a prime example, who owns over 40 percent of all media sources.
Like many things, the process of preparing and presenting news is not a simple one, and many factors go into the product that you read or hear. Thus, to say that there is a “liberal” or “conservative” bias may oversimplify the situation.
Moore and Parker recommend keeping the following points in mind when evaluating news sources:
- People in the news media make mistakes like everyone else
- The media are subject to pressure and manipulation from the government, other news sources, and people in power.
- The media are also, unfortunately, driven by profit, so this brings pressure from advertisers, owners and managers.
While some talk radio is a legitimate source of news, there is so much rumor, gossip, and namecalling that it becomes unreliable. Better to check another source for legitimate news.
Most of our collections of background information tell us that dinosaurs are extinct. How did that information become background information?
Socrates, philosophizing on his death bed in the famous painting below, was the wisest person in Ancient Athens because he knew that he didn't know. In other words, he realized his ignorance in so many aspects of life and this in itself opened him up to learn and grow and, ulitmately, develop understanding. What can we learn from Socrates today in an age where everyone seems to have it "figured out," often based only on a crude internet search, a couple of unreliable websites, and maybe a self-help book. Again, humility is a virtue.
Although not as influential as Socrates, a more recent thinker Robert Anton Wilson wrote very cryptic, conspiratorial fiction. Strange as he may have been, he occasionally wrote some pretty interesting stuff. Here's a quote from his book Cosmic Trigger: "As soon as one believes a doctine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence. The more certitude one assumes, the less there is left to think about, and a person sure of everything would never have any need to think about everything and might be considered clinically dead under current medical standards..."
The standard Corona ads do not offer a specific reason for buying Corona. They just potray the product in a good situation: at a tropical beach.
The ad below gives you a reason to get prozac: it will "wash your blues away."
The Internet
As much potential as the internet has as a medium, the information it provides must be evaluated with your critical thinking skills on full alert. This is especially true for those of you who have lived virtually your entire lives with the internet at your disposal.
The text notes two sources of internet information: 1) commercial and institutional sources and 2) individual and group sites.
The first are sources that are connected to legitimate news organizations, such as the MSNBC or Time Magazine websites (biased or not, these organizations are more credible than blogs). The second are blogs and everything else on the web, from good information to outright lies.
The information you get from a source is only as good as that source.
Wikipedia—good and bad. Because anyone can modify Wikipedia, the quality of the articles varies considerably. Although most errors get corrected eventually, at any given time, an entry can contain errors and falsities.
Moore and Parker think that Wikipedia is a great starting point for learning about some issue. Your current instructor agrees. Wikipedia is a great way to orient yourself to something. But if you really want to know about something in detail, you’d better consult other sources—books, articles, journals, etc. Remember, too, that a complete Wikipedia article contains sources at the bottom of the page.
Blogs: online journals that contain anything a person wants to put there. This definition alone should show you that blogs are not good sources of information, though they can be fun to read..
Here are links to some fact-checking websites (consumer reports is one of the best in my book): Debunking of Urban Legends, Politics, Consumer issues and products.
Advertising
Advertising in the media really stretches what we find to be credible. Advertisers exploit our fears and desires in an effort to get us to buy their products, support their candidate, support their ideal, etc.
Those who create ads are masters of the technique. They are creative. They hire sociologists and psychologists who understand human behavior, sometimes on the name alone. Exxon spent $100,000 on their name.
Of course, advertisers depend on so many people NOT thinking critically at all about their ads that even a little critical thinking on your part can prevent you from being persuaded. One question is important: does the ad give you a good reason to buy or support the product?
If buying the product will improve your life in some way, it might be a reasonable decision to buy. The problem is, advertisers can purposely instill desires in us that we didn’t previously have (you are not hungry… until you see the ad for Taco Bell).
The book notes two kinds of ads: 1) those that offer reasons and 2) those that don’t.
The first kinds are ads that promise you will feel better about yourself, your hopes will be satisfied, needs met.
The second kind has further divisions: ads that bring out our feelings, ads that rely on some admired person, and ads that put the product in good situations (like the corona ads).
It is good to note here that advertisers are perfect examples of interested parties. Ads do not justify our purchase of an item. Ads are made so that products will sell, not so you have the most reliable source of information concerning the product. If you’re going to buy something , there should be reasons beyond what is offered in the ad (although the ad may influence you by its existence alone).